Category: Religion

Press release: Getting Jefferson Right exposes Barton’s distortions of Jefferson

GROVE CITY, Penn., May 9, 2012 /Christian Newswire/ — In their new book, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President, Christian college professors Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter challenge claims about Thomas Jefferson made in the New York Times Best Selling book, “The Jefferson Lies” by David Barton.

In “The Jefferson Lies” and his talks about it, Barton claims that Thomas Jefferson

  • included all the words of Jesus and miracles from the gospel of Matthew in what is often called the Jefferson Bible,
  • personally helped finance the printing of the first “hot-pressed” Bible in America,
  • did not question the Trinity until after he left the presidency,
  • chose to include Christian language in his presidential documents by signing them “in the year of our Lord Christ,”
  • increased the number of divinity professors at the University of Virginia which he founded as a “transdenominational” school.

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Baptist minister justifies child abuse

This is disgusting.

(via Good as You)

Things are getting crazy. Dan Savage goes off on Christians, and this “minister,” Sean Harris, justifies child abuse.

As tempting as it is to get into the mudslinging, cooler heads need to step up and speak truth to both extremes.

The pastor is now saying he “misspoke.” He is also saying he was taken out of context. This is ridiculous since his own words were quoted and available on audio. He could say he regrets advocating smacking gender non-conforming kids but he has to blame others first for his careless words. This is one of those non-apology, apologies.

Scott Lively’s defense of Holocaust revision

Scott Lively has a new blog. His first post of substance is a defense of his revision of events surrounding the Nazi’s treatment of gays during WWII.

There isn’t much new there or of any real defense. He essentially says he’s right with no response to the claims raised against him. His defense boils down to this:

7. The Pink Swastika has not been “discredited” except by homosexualist reviewers, most of whom have failed to disclose their ideological conflict of interest. The few non-homosexual critics of the book have no expertise in the history of the “gay” movement and are thus not qualified to render judgment.

From his own perspective, Lively has no “ideological conflict of interest” which of course is contradicted by the body of his work. And, despite lacking the training he demands of others, he feels qualified to render his judgment.

Of course, his defense is self-serving. A gay person is just as capable of rendering the facts correctly as he is. Ideology matters but he is just as biased as any gay reviewer. And regarding his non-gay critics (e.g,, me), they are just as qualified to read and report what they read as he is.

Lively’s blanket dismissal of his critics obscures the fact that trained historians have dismissed Lively’s theories as inconsistent with the total picture. As I documented here in 2009, trained non-gay, even Christian, historians have considered The Pink Swastika and criticized Lively’s methods and his conclusions. Perhaps Lively will use his blog to actually respond to those critics, but I doubt it.

In light of the fact that he will not respond to the substantial and scholarly criticisms of The Pink Swastika, no one should take him up on his offer to debate. The ball is already in his court.

For more on The Pink Swastika, click the link.

For coverage of Scott Lively’s visit this weekend to an Oklahoma church, see this story.

David Barton spins the Jefferson Lies on Glenn Beck, Part 2

Sunday, I posted video of David Barton telling Glenn Beck that Jefferson’s 1804 extraction of verses from the Gospels contained miracles. Here again is the video and then the relevant transcription follows:

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Why is there no coverage at the Christian Post about Richard Land’s troubles?

UPDATE: Christianity Today, Religion Dispatches, and Christian Century (via Religion News Service) have stories on the SBC investigation. Nothing so far from CP.

Richard Land has been in the news a lot lately and not for reasons one would want to be in the news.

Land apologized for remarks made about the Trayvon Martin case on his radio show and then Monday apologized for his statements and for using content from a Washington Times article without verbal attribution. Wednesday, the SBC said they would investigate his remarks.

Continue reading “Why is there no coverage at the Christian Post about Richard Land’s troubles?”